My son isn’t old enough to wander around on his own, thankfully, so I have yet to experience the stress of worrying where he is at all times. But when he is old enough, I’ll probably want to keep track of his every move.

Technology has brought about many ways to do this – some more cheaply and easily than others. Here’s 5 ways you can set up alerts that let you know your kids have gotten home safe and sound.

Geofencing with the IFTTT Mobile App

If This Then That (IFTTT) is a favorite of geeks everywhere for its sheer power to connect disparate services together in new and wonderful ways – but the mobile app is a secret weapon in the automation arsenal.

I’d recommend setting up a separate account for your loved ones so you can continue to use the location channel for your own automation needs; and if you want to keep it simple, here’s a recipe that DMs you on Twitter. Obviously, this requires each family member you want to track to have a smartphone with data connection and GPS – so if you’re not comfortable giving your child a phone, scroll down to the other solutions.

GPS Tracking Wearables

There’s now a range of GPS equipped wearables, primarily designed for keeping tabs on children and elderly, though none of the devices stand out as a clear market leader. Most of these wearable devices give you a pinpoint map position at any time, but the one major downside to a GPS wearable is that it requires a mobile data connection, so there’s always a recurring cost just like a mobile phone.

Here’s a few options to get an idea of cost: PocketFinder is $130 upfront, with a monthly service fee of $12.50, which comes in a variety of designs depending on the intended use. AmberAlert comes in at a similar price, and although it offers emergency voice calls, is quite bulky for children and styled more like a pager of yesteryear. The TBS3203 is a slightly cheaper upfront cost with a more child friendly design that also acts as an actual watch (remember those?) – and includes emergency calls to up to 3 guardian numbers. The tracking features are reportedly a little complex to use with most interactions requiring a text message to be sent.

The app serves as both a family message and emergency alert system, as well as offering more gentle ways to check in or request a status update. It’s not an automatic alert, but in my opinion, it straddles the balance delicately between privacy and safety, and is a must have tool for large families often on the go.

SmartThings Arrival Sensor

The SmartThings Arrival Sensor is a small, inexpensive ($30) keyfob that you can give to all members of the family – the SmartThings hub will then detect when this tag arrives at home and perform any action or notification you configure. This does of course require a SmartThings hub, which will set you back an additional $100, but this would form a solid beginner-friendly basis for your entire smart home.

Even better news: version 2 of the hub has recently launched, offering a 10 hour backup battery in case your power goes out, support for Bluetooth 4.0, and an easier to use software interface.

You’ll also need to configure the IFTTT side of things. Create a new recipe using the Maker channel “Receive a web request” trigger and your choice of action – I set mine up to send an email like this. Notice that in the Python script, we’ve defined the event name as “presence”, Value1 as the person, and Value2 as the location. You can of course change these in the code, and duplicate the entire block to check for other people too by simply changing the Bluetooth address.

RFID may not be the technology used but, the way things are going, pretty soon we will all be required to be implanted with some kind of tracking chip, ostensibly "in the name of national security" and/or "to keep our kids safe." Those are the two most favorite justifications used by governments to pass surveillance laws.

James has a BSc in Artificial Intelligence, and is CompTIA A+ and Network+ certified. He's the lead developer of MakeUseOf, and spends his free time playing VR paintball and boardgames. He's been building PCs since he was a kid.